


you have to say, you have to say

by orphan_account



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:41:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24429649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Funny, that. Before she’d really had her, Adora was always so much better at tracking her down. Better at chasing when the only end goal was wanting. Better at taking when she was too weak to hold on.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 296





	you have to say, you have to say

Adora woke to an empty room. No Catra. No warmth. Nothing at all but the dull hum of various processes in Mara’s ship — _their_ ship, now, a reality she still struggled with — keeping them alive while they drift through the black of space. Panic bubbled up in the pit of her gut.

(much later, after shedding their clothes and tangling themselves back together, Catra would be sure to suitably tease her for thinking for even an instant that she would rather jump into the void than stay, now that she finally had her)

It was the dead of night, or at least what they’d collectively agreed on as night, freed from planetary cycles of light and dark as they were. Stars shone through the lone window of their quarters as beautifully as ever, thousands, millions, countless drops of brightness scattered beyond the limits of awareness.

But the darkness between was still the darkness. Beautiful as it may have been, starlight was useless to her. Adora groaned, rolling onto her back. She clapped. Once. Twice. After a faint bit of whirring and clunking, hazy teal lamps faded to life along the place where the walls met what artificial gravity insisted were floors. Other than the window, there really wasn’t much difference.

Slowly, and not without groaning through the strain of sleep leaden limbs, Adora adjusted the plain muscle tank and grey sweatpants she’d been using as pajamas, swinging her legs off the side of the bed. She massaged her knees, cracked her back, and popped a shoulder. Her hair was a mess, let loose and tangled in places, held up through the magic of pillows in others.

Her hair was _staying_ a mess.

She looked around again, as if seeing in the relative uselessness of the ship’s light might have changed things, but Catra was still nowhere in sight. Her only company was bare sheet metal in the shape of a room and bedding that still smelled of those last blissful hours of consciousness. Tongues, and teeth, and claws, and Catra's perfect gravel tinged voice whispering _Adora, Adora, Adora._

Adora pinched the bridge of her nose, pushing back the blush before it could be, and dragged her palm roughly down her face. She shoved herself to her feet.

The halls of the ship were, like their quarters, empty. Sparse. Steel and sharp functionality with no room for aesthetics. They reminded almost painfully so of long years in the Horde with nothing and no one but Catra at her side. The other cadets had been friends, sure, but none of them could ever keep the sharp twinge of loneliness at bay just by _being._ Not like Catra.

Never like Catra.

The sharp sounds of stifled giggles cut her abruptly from the memory.

Only after the second wave of laughter, and shushes, and unbridled joy did she realize she was standing just outside the room Glimmer and Bow still pretended they weren’t sharing. She ignored them both and pressed on, burying down a pang of longing like it barely existed.

Her wandering turned aimless from there, carrying her past the showers, and the mountains of toiletries Glimmer brought along from the last planet they’d visited, hidden within. Past the dining area, stocked full of so much _real_ food that Catra had yet to experience. The cargo bay, half transformed into Bow’s direct line to Entrapta in case of emergency and half packed to the ceiling with the tools and supplies necessary to _fix_ said emergencies.

Past corner after corner after corner of the ship.

Catra was in exactly none of them. Funny, that. Before she’d really had her, Adora was always so much better at tracking her down. Better at chasing when the only end goal was wanting. Better at taking when she was too weak to hold on.

(that, too, Catra would find ways to make embarrassing; breathless cackles and raspy whispers that tasted of absolution; whispers of _like I’ve ever hidden anywhere you couldn’t find me_ before any rebuttal was muffled beneath slick, wet heat rocking against her lips and thighs pressed insistently at her temples)

Eventually — and _oh_ there was something wonderful in the thought that even through the struggle, they had always been an eventuality — Adora’s legs carried her to the bridge. To its massive vaulted ceiling and wall-to-wall windows. To Catra. She was perched, back to the entrance and inches from the glass, on one of the only spaces at the head of the room where the consoles weren’t covered in buttons. Her legs were tucked up against her chest; her head resting on her knees.

For long moments, Adora did nothing but watch, the scene something straight out of a painting: Catra in an old gauzy crop top and shorts. Catra fresh out of a nightmare, holding herself like the only grounding force she’d ever known. Catra, dark brown strands of hair just barely beginning to grow and curl out of the pixie cut she’d had, back when…

Adora shook the thought from her head.

Catra was framed by starlight as far as the eye could see. The blues, and purples, and pinks of distant galaxies were thrown in every direction like splashes of ink against the black. It was beautiful. _Catra_ was beautiful. The centerpiece of a mural for the heavens.

Nightmares had no place next to such a sight.

Adora crossed the room then, only stopping at the pilot’s chair in the center to pet a dozing, curled up, and still half-conscious Melog behind the ears. Barely, barely, on the very edges of her periphery, Adora watched as the resulting satisfied purr sent Catra’s fur standing on end. She would pay for that one, later.

( _please, please, pleasepleaseplease,_ as the pads of Catra’s fingers spun lazy circles inside of her, the heel of her palm pressing insistently everywhere except the place she wanted it most, _Catra, I will_ die _if you don’t —_ )

Adora splayed her hands flat against the console, one on either side of Catra’s body. She leaned in, leaned further, lips pressed against the line of Catra’s jaw, painting slow breaths across her cheek to the tune of satisfied sighs and sleep-roughened moans. To the feeling of Catra rolling her shoulders forward and pressing back, hoping to fit as much of herself against her chest as she could.

(legs wrapped too-tight around her waist, head tilted, neck bared, apology and dare irrevocably wrapped up together, _took you long enough, Adora,_ until Adora was tracing the tip of her nose over every line of taut muscle in reach, teeth seconds from clamping down to _shut her up_ and)

“Sorry,” Catra whispered, voice rough and ragged, the very instant Adora pressed closer. The very instant Adora’s hands found purchase at the ridge of her hips. Adora’s lips at the sensitive place where her ear and jaw met. “I’m sorry.”

Adora pulled back.

Tried, anyway, because Catra’s tail was wrapped insistently around her left wrist, urging her to stay, stay, _stay._ And. So. She stayed. And Catra turned, shifting herself toward eye contact.

The ship’s AI whirred to life in the movement, but two sets of not-quite-frantically waving hands was all it took to force it to sleep and return the bridge to silence. Catra’s legs locking together at the ankles behind Adora’s back, pulling her steadily closer, was all it took to forget it had happened at all.

They were close enough then that Adora barely needed to move to press her lips to the space between Catra’s brows and ease the tension there into nothing.

Claws dragged too hard down her back in answer, shredding flesh from shoulder to spine until Catra’s fingers were trembling, faltering, slowing to nothing but an unbreakable grip on what fabric remained, but Adora let it happen. She held Catra tighter.

( _god, Adora, you’re so clingy,_ Catra would say of the gesture, hours later, when they were both half asleep and too spent for anything but floating through the afterglow and tracing old scars, recounting the chase)

( _uh huh,_ Adora would add with a smile, disbelieving and indulgent as she untangled their limbs to roll back on top, _the clingiest_ )

(before drawing a path with her lips from throat, to collarbone, to chest, because maybe they weren’t too spent after all)

( _I truly do not know why I keep you around, princess_ )

(to that sensitive spot on the side of Catra’s left breast she loved to pretend wasn’t real)

( _how would the rest of the universe react if they kn — ohhh_ )

(stomach to thighs, knees to calves, ankles to —)

(gut-deep gravelly laughter and, _Adora, you absolute fucker, go back_ )

(and back, but not all the way)

( _Adora, oh, Adora_ )

(not all the way)

( _Adora, please, please, please_ )

(until, finally,)


End file.
